ST. BONAVENTURE (19-10, 7-9 A-10) vs UMASS (12-17, 7-9 A-10)
Wednesday, March 5 – 7:00 p.m.
Reilly Center
TV: ESPN+
Radio: Bonnies Online Network / 100.1 FM The Hero

OPENING TIP
St. Bonaventure wraps up its home schedule on Wednesday night with the penultimate game of the regular season as UMass comes to town to complete a home-and-home series. St. Bonaventure has won two of its last three including a victory at UMass on Feb. 15, 73-59. The Bonnies and Minutemen currently have matching 7-9 records in conference play.

STARTING FIVE

• The Bonnies continue to rank as one of the nation's top defenses. Entering this week, St. Bonaventure stands 20^th nationally in scoring defense by allowing 64.7 ppg. Three A-10 programs are in the top-20: VCU is 10^th (62.2 ppg allowed) and George Mason is 12^th (63.2 ppg).
• Despite not being a natural point guard, Melvin Council Jr. stands among the A-10 leaders in assists this year. He is sixth overall at 4.1 apg, just behind Japhet Medor of Fordham at 4.2 apg for a top-five spot. Sebastian Thomas of Rhode Island leads the league by a large margin at 6.1 apg. Council is also tied sixth in assist-to-turnover ratio (2.3). Council needs 26 more assists to break into the program's top-15 single season leaders. The all-time mark of 216 was set by Marques Green in 2002-03.
• Bona's entire starting five is averaging double figures in A-10 play … just about: Melvin Council Jr. (15.6 ppg), Noel Brown (12.6 ppg), Lajae Jones (11.9 ppg), Chance Moore (10.6 ppg) and Jonah Hinton (9.7 ppg).
• The rims at the Reilly Center have been kind to the Bonnies all season: at home, the Bonnies are shooting 36% from 3-point land with over seven made 3s per game along with a better than 46% overall shooting percentage. On the road, the Bonnies average a 28.8% success rate from deep and just over five 3s per contest.
• A win Wednesday would give the Bonnies 20 victories on the year and a 12-3 mark on home court. St. Bonaventure is 63-20 at home in Atlantic 10 play since 2015-16.

 
TRENDING NUMBERS
20 – A win Wednesday would give the Bonnies their seventh 20-win season under head coach Mark Schmidt and the 19th in program history.

70 –  St. Bonaventure is 14-2 when reaching 70 points this season.

79 – Wednesday's game will be the 79^th meeting all-time between the Bonnies and Minutemen, the fifth-longest series in Bona history. It will be the last for the foreseeable future, though, as UMass will move to the MAC next season.

131 – Wednesday's game will be the final contest at the Reilly Center for grad captain Noel Brown. In total, it will be his 131^st career Division I game and his 63^rd in a Bonnies uniform. Brown has started every game this year. He has tallied 26 career games of double-figure scoring, 20 of which have come this year.

678 – Bonnies assistant coach Chris Lowe is one of the best players in UMass program history, graduating as the Minutemen's all-time assists leader with 678 between 2005-09. He became just the seventh Atlantic 10 player to post 1,000 points with 600 assists while serving as the program's starting point guard for four seasons.
 
CLUTCH COUNCIL
Melvin Council Jr. has been at his best during Atlantic 10 play this year. The do-it-all captain has registered 15.6 points, 5.3 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 1.6 steals per game during conference action. He has scored in double figures in every conference contest this year and in 20 straight games overall.

JONES' JUMPERS
Lajae Jones had one of the best shooting performances of the season last time on home court in a win over Duquesne, matching his career-high with 24 points on 8-of-11 shooting overall and 4-of-6 from beyond the arc. Perhaps most impressively, it wasn't his best shooting effort this year: in a January game vs. La Salle he went 8-9 from the floor and 4-4 from deep for 24 points.

For the year, he stands third among all A-10 players in 3-point percentage at 43.6 percent. In A-10 action, he is shooting over 47 percent overall from the floor.
 
SERIES HISTORY
The Bonnies and Minutemen will be meeting for the 79th time when they lock up Wednesday. It will be the last meeting for the foreseeable future, unless the programs meet in the A-10 Tournament, as UMass is set to move to the Mid-American Conference next year.

St. Bonaventure has played just four schools more – Canisius (172 meetings), Niagara (162), Duquesne (131) and Saint Joseph's (84).

UMass holds a 42-36 series lead after dominating the early years, but the Bonnies have won 13 of the past 14 meetings and 17 of the last 20. The Minutemen snapped what was a 10-game Bonnies winning streak in the series in March 2023 as UMass came away with a 71-61 home win.

Last year, though, the Bonnies got back on the winning side of things as they scored a season sweep with a home win, 79-73, before taking a 75-67 victory in Amherst.

Last month, the Bonnies controlled from nearly start to finish in a 73-59 win in Massachusetts. Chance Moore posted a double-double of 15 points and 10 rebounds while Lajae Jones (14 points), Melvin Council Jr. (12), Noel Brown (12) and Jonah Hinton (11) completed a well-rounded scoring attack. Bona limited the Minutemen to 18-of-51 overall from the floor and just 3-17 from distance.

UMASS NOTES

• Massachusetts is coached by Frank Martin in his second season with the program. When hired, he brought to the table 10 years of experience at South Carolina, where he took the program to its first Final Four as a seven seed in 2017. He also coached five seasons at Kansas State. Last season, he led the Minutemen to a 20-11 record and a Myrtle Beach Invitational title, though the Bonnies swept the season series, 2-0.
• This season UMass has found success from the paint, as they rank ninth ninth nationally in offensive rebounds per game (14) and 19^th nationally in blocks per game (5.0) . They also rank 18^th among all D-I teams in combined rebounds per game. Pacing the team on the glass is senior forward Daniel Rivera, who grabs an average of 7.3 boards per game. A fellow forward, 6'10 junior Shahid Muhammad, is the team's current blocks leader, totaling 43 on the year.
• Senior guard Rahsool Diggins ranks sixth among all A-10 players in scoring at over 17 points per contest while his 81 3-pointers on the year are fifth-most in the league on an conference-high 254 trey attempts. Rivera (11.5 ppg) and Jaylen Curry (13.2 ppg) each add scoring threats as well. Curry also stands second in the A-10 for assist-to-turnover ratio this season at 2.9. Curry missed the first meeting with a wrist injury.
• The Minutemen bring momentum to Western New York as they scored a 91-88 home win vs. Rhode Island on Saturday. Diggins poured in 29 points with six assists while Curry totaled 22 points and eight helpers.
• Massachusetts is one of the worst free throw shooting teams in the nation, shooting just 66 percent at the charity stripe to rank 332^nd nationally.

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